Holiday
by failsafeparoxysm
Summary: In the wake of the to-date most famous series of disasters and the greatest war the world has ever seen, everyone wants something to look at. They need it. But some people are looking for someone to blame. And sometimes there's a risk, a price to be paid, for being a rockstar.
1. Move to the Music

When it's over, everyone expects something to happen. The air is charged with it—the hope that comes with the War finally being over. But for a while, nothing really happens.

There are still miles and miles of coastal land that won't be inhabited for years. There are fish—some of them dead, some of them malformed, some both—that wash up on shores unexpected, riddled with disease and scarring and worse, all of them tinged blue. Everyone who was ever lost during the twelve years' war is still gone. The riots don't all stop. There is talk of peace but an utter lack of planning. A world bent on surviving is suddenly faced with the prospect of living again.

No one expects to survive the Apocalypse.

And so the hounds are restless. Not the small Category 1 and 2 monsters but much smaller ones than that. People. Specifically, people with press passes and cameras and bulky, padded microphones. Most specifically, namely: the PPDN.

_12 years. 24 hours a day. Over 50 countries and dependent and independent territories. _

Countless interested parties. All around the world, the propaganda machine whirred on and on and on...

When the Breach closes, the world is brand new. The slate's wiped clean and all the hushed silence that had fallen, halting sales and production of Kaiju and Jaeger shoes and toys and clothes lifts away. It's boom time again.

All because of a single clip. A clip that's played over and over and over again. The sound is muted more often than not—when it's played it's just the constant, rhythmic whip of a propeller up above, drowning out the slosh of the ocean down below. The footage is grainy, out of focus, but there's only one thing it's even trying to focus on. Down right in front and then just below the lens's view is a liquid balloon of green spreading out, a flare in the water, and then another much more interesting metal, bobbing speck. The latter speck is occupied by two figures, leaned forward and touching, one damp, dark head of hair and another light and dry. Then one leaned against the other's shoulder, head ducking down, and in the vibrating, poor footage, it's still easy to make out an impression of both their faces...

The clip wasn't supposed to have been public. It is one of a dozen or so nearly identical clips that exist, all from slightly different angles. It just so happens that it's the one that got leaked.

Someone got in trouble over that. Someone lost their job and their rank over that. That someone didn't care.

And just like that, it's so simple—what's going to happen next. It's so simple, what the world will look at with rapt attention, inclining their heads toward the myriad television screens mounted in every public place and nearly every home.

Just like that: Mako Mori and Raleigh Becket are the two most famous people on planet Earth.

**oOoOo**

There's a high-pitched, sustained note of music that drowns out the natural ambient noise of the long, rectangular room. Occasionally a clap interrupts the noise, or a deeper thump, a building beat works its way up to blend with it and fade out again.

To Raleigh, it makes the whole place seem surreal—underwater. The choice of soundtrack is where the similarities to the nearby ocean begin and end. The light is shades of warm pink and yellow and stark white, all at different and probably somehow appropriate angles. The floor is the color of cream, speckled with hardly visible mica that shimmers if he changes the angle of his gaze. All of it is perfectly brand new.

Outside, and pretty much anywhere else in Hong Kong, a person can hear machinery going all hours of the day and night.

Reconstruction.

It's everywhere, not just in Hong Kong, but all along the Pacific Rim. Not here, though. Here there's a little safe haven, a sacred ground they've been polishing up, making ready for the cameras, like it's the Olympics or royalty arriving. For all he knows, some royalty might be—it's been a while since there was something of Olympic magnitude to celebrate.

The thought just serves to bring him back into the moment, where he prefers to live—most of the time. In this polished little bubble away from the reality down on streets, made all the more complete by the music and excited bursts of chatter in the background, Raleigh has been shorn and trimmed and even plucked to the point that when he looks in the mirror—positioned directly in front of him and surrounded by bare bulbs—it kind of looks like the last five years didn't even happen.

In fact, he's probably more clean-cut than he was then, especially given the clothes he knows they're going to help him into just as soon as they've pored over his reflection a little longer. They ask for his opinion about things he really has no idea about as they come and go. For now, he's just got a white crew-necked t-shirt and some dark blue, issued sweatpants.

He really wishes it could stay that way, already dreading the night that lies ahead.

"What do you think, Mr. Becket?" the woman who'd been in charge of the electric razor asks, approaching his side again.

His eyes follow her movement into the reflection in front of him. He really doesn't know what to say about his new haircut, though. _It's... nice?_ But in the grand scheme of things it seems embarrassingly mundane.

He opens his mouth to say something, to come up with anything, but then he hears the click of a high heel on the floor—distinct from everything else including the high pitch and the repetitive thumping—and he realizes his mistake. Fishing a foot down to the floor, he pivots himself around to face Mako. He's glad he didn't manage to say something stupid that would alienate her before they have to face their biggest media circus yet. He knows he really shouldn't worry too much about that, but...

She seems so far away sometimes, now that they don't actively share _everything_.

It takes him a long moment of doing something that's a bit between staring and losing focus to realize that it's still a little bit strange that the stylist asked _him_ what _he_ thought. When he looks up and sees Mako's eyes, the slight part of her lips, she seems like she's waiting. For something, anyway.

Her dress falls short against her thighs and she still stands as poised as ever. Something about the way she balances on the heels seems a little different, but nothing about them throws her off. It surprises him a little. The fabric of the dress is a dark, dulled blue, familiar and with a faint sheen. A band of fabric runs horizontally across her waist just beneath her chest, set off only by its seams. Affixed right in the center of it, there is a large brooch which outshines the dress with a radiating sparkle each time she moves, each time she breathes—concentric circles, red, white, red. Raleigh's eyes study the costume—because that's what it is, a costume as much as a dress—with a kind of bemused recognition. It's beautiful, but there's something in the fact that she's become the Jaeger that the two of them saved the world with, the one she restored—he wonders if she's really okay with it.

Finally, he snaps his eyes back up and notes the way they've elongated her hair more than time and natural growth had done on their own. Extensions, he thinks they're called. That's all he knows about it.

When he meets her eyes, he flashes her a broad, unrepentant grin.

"You look good," he tells her, words drawling into one another in a familiar way that glides over his tongue like the memory the two of them share. No one else in the room knows about it, but he sees the way her head tilts softly under the brush of it and feels some secret thrill.

He sees a slight twitch in her lips that goes beyond her smile. For a second, he thinks she is going to say something but he watches as she changes her mind. Then he loses her gaze as she turns to look at his still-hanging suit. It's just plain black and white—normal, a dime a dozen. Only probably not actually worth a dime—maybe worth a bit more than that.

"Gonna outshine me like the moon to the stars," he amends, still eying the way she eyes the suit. When she looks at him, he can tell she's sizing him up again.

Maybe the suit isn't such a bad idea.

Raleigh finally decides to stop waiting around for permission to stand up and presses both his sock feet to the foot rest bar of the salon chair and helps himself up, shifting side to side against the smooth floor just off the padding that still has little golden and brownish traces of hair that used to be somewhere on his head. The only thing he sees are brown eyes as he moves forward, familiar and smiling like her mouth. He hardly notices that someone intercepts them, jolting back just a little when a small American woman reaches out and takes Mako gently by the forearm with her hand. Raleigh's eyebrows shoot up, wondering if the woman between them notices the slackening around Mako's lips and eyes that indicates something at least bordering on annoyance. She is never anything but polite, though.

"Here you are, Miss Mori," the woman says, holding out a small, red clutch, pressing it gently into Mako's palm like a handshake. It matches the red in the brooch.

Mako's eyes shift from Raleigh's to study up and down the woman's face, her hand automatically gripping the fabric from beneath.

"Thank you," she prefaces, and Raleigh can already hear the way she means _'Thanks, but no thanks,'_ and he can see the way the woman doesn't get it. "But I don't need to carry anything with me. No identification is needed and I don't have any money to carry," she explains.

For some reason, it's absolutely riotous to the women and one other man in the room. Raleigh lifts his chin up, sucking in a breath that he resists the urge to sigh out dramatically to draw the attention back away from her. He's protective. But then he realizes that the way she smiles—she's rolling with it. And, to be fair, he knew they weren't making fun of her. It's more the grating sensation of people laughing at a joke because of who a person is rather than what they have to say. Neither he nor Mako like that, and he knows it.

"Maybe I can use it to take something home with me. I am sure the food will be much better than in the mess," she answers with a little crinkle of disgust in her nose. She takes the clutch neatly into her possession, drawing back away from the woman who'd handed it to her. She's saved herself the spiel about why she ought to carry it because of who made it or what it means—all with this little quirk of wit that he knew was organic but which had seemed so restrained before the first time he'd seen her in a Jaeger. He knows it's all hers. He knows she owns it. Raleigh's proud to bursting, whether or not he has the right.

He pushes his shoulders forward and with a little wiggling shrug and tug, Raleigh has his t-shirt up and over his hand, holding it by the neck as he stands there, only clothed from the waist down, dogtag necklace conspicuously missing. He notices it set aside in a small tray with the hair trimming implements and he picks it up with a finger, working it back over his head with ease. The only set of eyes he pays any attention to are the same brown ones he'd been looking at before they were so inconveniently interrupted. There's something very inconvenient—tiring, really—about all of this.

Raleigh is, however, vaguely aware that the casual shedding of his clothes has the half-intended consequence of leveling out the concentration of attention in the room. Well, it actually settles it pretty firmly on him, but he doesn't mind. Much. He only starts to worry a little when he notices the way Mako's eyes go from fixing on him to shifting around the room. He reads the way she stands up ever so slightly straighter that she would rather him not use this tactic—or, well, that she'd rather them not respond to it.

He grabs for the white collared shirt and makes quick work of unbuttoning it and sliding it down from its hanger. Shrugging it on with only slightly more care than he'd used shrugging his t-shirt off, he quickly starts buttoning the thing. He takes a few steps over to Mako, so close he has to look down a little to see her eyes.

"Let's get me dressed and get this over with," he suggests. And the thing is, misunderstanding between them feels like it ought to be next to impossible, so he isn't entirely sure if he's startled by the slight sideways glance that appears to be embarrassment. Then she corrects her gaze and looks right at him and then lets it drop down right toward his collar. He can tell she is rising to a challenge, but that's not a challenge for now or here and suddenly he feels the skin flush hot up the back of his neck. He watches her and he thinks he sees—approval? Her fingertips touch the starchier-than-usual fabric that hangs still half-loose over his chest.

"Would you like any help with that, Mr. Becket?" the woman who had operated the electric razor asks. Then he sees something _else_ in Mako's expression. A dip down, a drop of her chin, a certain sourness in the line of her mouth that barely moves at all and thinly veiled—disappointment?

"_I_ can get me dressed," he amends, briefly touching her arm just beneath her elbow and lightly. She looks up at him and he sees a return of the light in her eyes—approval, definitely approval. Then he darts off to pick up the other hanging pieces of the suit and ducks into a room alone to change.

**oOoOo**

Herc Hansen hates suits and ties. He especially hates wearing the familiar dress blues he's forced to wear tonight because he doesn't own anything else of the like. He hangs around, pretty unremarkable off to the right of the shiny line of doors, poised on the top step and waiting for a car. He isn't a chauffeur or chaperone and it's not expressly his job to wait on them, but it's better than being inside where there is already a wall of music being emitted from speakers that come up to hip-height. Sometimes he recognizes chords—some of them from songs that had come about when the idea of winning had been big business but others are much, much older. He dully recognizes them, too. He can't get far away enough.

Glancing down for the time, he finally admits to himself that it's pointless to wait outside just yet. No matter how short the distance is, standing still isn't going to bring them any further into reach. Wishing minutes away is useless.

Abruptly, he steals away to head inside. Thankfully, the small sea of cordoned-off insect eyes, waiting to flash and flicker and capture, isn't really interested in him. He can keep moving, not caught in that underwater flash.

Inside, the air is a little thick with perfume that seems to emanate from the carpet, but once he's out of the hotel lobby and walks down the short flight of stairs toward the expansive ballroom it dissipates so he can breathe. The music is still much too loud.

A tap up by his ear and he asks in rote, not minding the ambient noise: "How are the exits?"

Positive reports.

"The roof?"

_Very good, sir. Clear visual, sir._

All of them responding to him with 'sir.' Not a one of them PPDC. It's amazing, how clear his loyalties seem to him now—when it's all too late. The PPDC's presence here is as little more than bodyguard and back-up band to Becket and Mori. Not that they don't merit or need it, but it rankles him. Everyone conveniently forgets that the PPDC had fallen out of favor with the suits. They'd pulled the plug. But now it's like none of that happened and the entire grinning lot of them have nothing but praises for the Jaegers that brought the beasts down, that closed the Breach. And they mostly talk about _the Jaeger_. So he's stuck standing here—walking here, toward the first faces he recognizes and without a foggy comprehension as to why—in a suit.

"I'm telling you, it's _so cool—_well, I guess it _was_ so cool, but you get what I'm saying. I mean... it's awful. Don't get me wrong. But I've been doing some research in my spare time since the Breach closed, and it's entirely possible—actually it's _definitely_ what happened, but you get the turn of phrase—that the dinosaurs—" Newt Geiszler prattles on like a halting but unstoppable machine, his hands moving and gesturing like he's performing with shadow puppets and physically pushing his point home at the same time. He's wearing a more respectable shirt, but his jacket's already found a chair to drape over, his sleeves pushed up as high toward his elbows as they'll go. Something about that man simply cannot resist showing off every speck of ink, every monument to dead things, he can manage.

He's talking to a huddle of four people, two of whom are women. One's wide-eyed and eating it up—pretty, full-figured brunette. Herc sighs and tries not to indicate outward disgust or weariness, only fretting with reaching up and rubbing at the somewhat lengthy stubble along his jaw. They may have gotten him back in the suit, but they won't take his face from him. It's all he's got left.

He gives Newt and his chosen side of a round table, draped in white and a red runner, something of a wide berth. He circles around and strides instead over toward the _other_ scientist. He's standing off to the side, inclined slightly toward Newt but seeming to hold as high a posture as steadying on his cane will allow. He's dressed well, though there's something a little uneasy to the eyes about the faint brocade-like pattern to his jacket. He looks very formal, a flower pinned to his lapel. Herc can't imagine being able to name it, though he imagines it has some significance.

"Like a party, do you?" he asks, wondering on his very next breath why he's chosen to engage in small talk at all.

"Not generally, no," Gottlieb replies, and for a moment it's every bit as monotone and slightly morose as Herc has come to expect. Then Gottlieb is smirking every so slightly and it settles onto his face in such a natural way that Herc actually looks at him for more than a cursory instant, his eyebrows lifting up a bit. "As I'm sure you might imagine."

"You don't say." It's not a question. That's likely friendliness enough for one day with them—the scientists, either of them. They've proven themselves good enough men, but Herc has absolutely no interest in provoking examination.

"Yes, sir. And this isn't simply a party. It's a great honor," Gottlieb responds, and Herc's eyebrows move a bit upward again when Gottlieb seems to find another vertebra's worth of height.

"Looks pretty damn well like a party to me," Herc retorts. Again, he doesn't know why he's talking. A scientist has called him _'sir.' _

Hermann's gaze corrects itself toward his general direction and after a bit of hesitation he meets his eyes. It seems Gottlieb has been waiting.

"I realize. But for all this garish racket, I think it is still... an honor."

Herc wants to go and tear something substantial in half, but it's not anger with the scientist. In fact, he's rather impressed. He just hates that he thinks he fully understands what the other man is saying. He cannot afford to go and rip anything to pieces right now, so he settles for something else. A gesture.

"Suppose we dispense with the _'sir,'_ for the remainder of the evening," he suggests.

Hermann's dark eyes widen and he shakes his head quite insistently, shaking like a rattle for a moment.

"Oh, no, I mustn't," he insists, amicably and with a slight lift of his free hand. Then he's smiling again, playing off the _gesture_. "Wouldn't want just anyone getting the wrong idea," he says, faint gesture of his own just barely indicating Newt.

"We just won't tell him," Herc offers. Then he looks down and nods toward his dress blues. "... Least 'til I get my clothes back on?" he bargains, meeting Gottlieb's eyes with no pretenses. He breathes out when the other man seems to understand and gives him a nod.

"Oh yes, s—yes," Hermann confirms with a deep, steady nod. "Of course—enjoy your evening—" he wishes him. Herc can hear the hesitation each time.

"And see to it that one doesn't get going to hard, alright?" Herc requests, giving a perfunctory_ drinking _pantomime.

"He's a bit enthusiastic, yes... I'll see what I can do."

The hesitation is just slight that time.

Taking an opportunity to move on, Herc turns and starts to head out the long way to make it back around to the door in time to get the kids.

"Hey, Ser—Marshall!" drawls out a loud voice, friendly and booming enough to make Herc turn around without much consideration of other options. At least he knows how to talk to Tendo. He'll have to give him the no 'sir,' and no rank suggestion, too. He doesn't want it tonight. Not where he doesn't have to take it.

"Look who's dragged in. Got here before our _honored guests_," he replies, no real malice to his sarcasm as he approaches Tendo Choi.

"Well, you know how it is—_traffic_," Tendo jokes as he reaches out to clap Herc on the shoulder, as is his way.

"Where's your wife?" Herc converses casually again, only slightly less bewildered at himself.

"Oh, you know. Family at home. Late in the day. And we're pulling out soon. I've got Alison's well-wishes here in my pocket," Tendo explains with a vague gesture to what is in all likelihood an empty pocket. The man has a flair for poetry, Herc thinks with the same lack of malice.

"Where you off to?"

"Memphis, maybe," Tendo supplies, and Herc has no idea if it's an expected joke or earnest.

"Right."

"But first I gotta see our boy and girl of the hour."

Herc simply hangs a soft smile on his face and clears his throat, resisting the urge to pocket his hands. He's not fishing for anything, but he sees a sudden tension and alarm straighten up through Tendo's posture. He shuts his eyes, _not wanting to hear it_.

"... I've known them both a long time," he says, and it's an excuse as much as Herc just wishes it were an explanation. "I was right on the line when—" And there's a reference Tendo won't complete because it's too close. He wishes he wouldn't tiptoe. "And I watched her... get what she wanted. That's a great, great thing... seeing kids do that."

And, at least Herc thinks, he didn't have the squeamishness for that to occur to him as a kind of rubbing it in. He knows it isn't, but it still stings.

"I dread it for them," he admits.

"Nah, they'll do just fine. I'm here to see to it."

"Suppose they come in here and—" But it's too empty for Herc to give voice to. Just idle chatter. And so he asks what seems like the most idle question of all—and perhaps the one most likely to draw a wager. "You reckon they got Miss Mori back into a dress?"

"I don't think she'll stop 'em," Tendo responds, smile settling onto his face as he rolls shoulders back to straighten once more.

"Could if she wanted," Herc agrees.

"Oh, absolutely. Not saying nothing about her being a girl. I just think I know her a little bit. And... girl can have her reasons."

"I'd better go see if our reasons are here yet."

**oOoOo**

The interior of the car is still and cool, dark and lit red by flashing lights above them. Raleigh notices more than the red the stripes their skin the way there's something red clutched to her chest once more. He wonders if he ought to offer to take it away.

She's seated in the center of the car, quite by her own choice. She hadn't slid over until both the doors were closed, and she'd neatly fastened the lap belt back in place. Nothing too rebellious for now.

"They don't know what it means," she comments into the dark toward the floorboard and Raleigh ducks his head slightly to listen.

There are at least three and possibly a hundred things she could be talking about. Raleigh knows nearly every single one, but he has no direct access to pinpoint which she means. He thinks he knows well enough to agree, though.

"They don't have to. They just need us to smile and tell them it's alright. … And it's gonna be," he promises, utterly hoping that it's as true as he sometimes, sometimes thinks it is.

He sees the set of Mako's jaw as she levels her gaze up toward the front of the car and swallows down.

"Hey," Raleigh coaxes, reaching out and thinking of touching her face or her jaw to gently, carefully ask her to look at him. "It's just for a little bit."

"I'm not afraid, Raleigh," Mako scolds softly. His name. He's listening. Rather than saying anything else for a moment, she adjusts a little and does look up at him, chin-lifted and expectant. He raises his eyebrows a little carelessly and smiles until it aches just a little bit. Bowing further forward, his temple touches hers and up and down in a little motion goes a little mutual, faint friction-causing nod. Nuzzling.

"But I've done this before," he suggests.

"You've done this before," she agrees, and he sees her teeth when she smiles behind her painted lips.

"Yeah, well. I might be a little bit rusty," he says when he remembers he ought to say something. And then they're just looking, still and silent and breathing, and the only thing he sees is warm light touching her eyes in the dark.

They almost don't notice when the car stops moving.

* * *

**A/N:** This story is cross-posted from my AO3 account (failsafe) where more info about it can be found. It is a fill for a prompt on the Pacific Rim kink meme.


	2. Through the Smokey Air

Herc is glad he chose to come out when he did. To him, they look like vultures, lunging at the car door with their searching camera lenses. If it were up to him, the one video that parades around night and day would be enough. They're rangers, not film stars.

He's not entirely sure on whether or not Becket and Mori concede this point or not, but when he sees the usher open the doors and the dark cable that holds back the press corps give a little toward the carpeted aisle, he marches straight down toward them. Official head of security—or not—he's responsible for them.

About time he's finished swimming upstream to get to the car, Raleigh is piling out of the vehicle and straightening out in his almost deliberately inelegant way. Mako at least knows how to conduct herself, even in the clothes that are so much unlike anything Herc has ever seen her in.

Even when she was a little girl, she'd all but given up the dresses by the time they'd met.

He notices particularly the way she doesn't hang on her co-pilot's arm but she grabs for it nonetheless. Her hand clutching to his jacket's sleeve is as much a tug back toward herself as it is any desire for stability—she's keeping him close.

Glancing back over his shoulder, he can't say he blames her. He hears the shutters, sees the flashes, and he knows that from a certain angle his stance has frustrated the efforts of some of the camera-armed flies.

He's not sure he's sorry.

He steps back and out of the line of most of them, being deliberate as he can about never quite looking them in the eyes—the photographers or the people they take the pictures for. He's never liked the press being so interested in them, even when they only had good things to report. His usual response has always been to just push away, to avoid, but for an instant he remembers the way his son always pushed back—sometimes angrily and other times with a confident smile that told them exactly how little they knew. And for a moment, he's tempted. To push back. But he doesn't.

"Was beginning to wonder what had become of you two," he says instead, out of the corner of his mouth but loudly enough to be heard.

"You know how it is, Marshall. Got us all dressed up when they think we've got someplace to go," Raleigh calls out, glancing down the length of the aisle to the door apprehensively.

"Would appreciate we drop the ranks tonight, kid."

"Oh, yeah sure—yes, sir," Raleigh replies. He suddenly is fumbling for Mako's hand and Herc thinks he sees why she had reached for his arm first. She'd anticipated it. He doesn't bother correcting him on the 'sir.'

"Excuse me, Marshall," Mako addresses, and in the way she says it Herc knows there's no point correcting her at all. She's got it down her blood now, following rank, just the way Stacker would have taught her. And Herc doesn't have the heart to correct her. He can't remind her, just the way he hates it when people remind him.

Mako shuffles a little closer, avoiding stepping any further down the aisle or bumping into Raleigh as he holds close. Mako looks up at him, very focused.

"What do we do?"

"What do you mean?" Herc asks. He's not trying to be difficult, but they've given interviews, and they've certainly been to debriefings before. He doesn't follow the question.

"Anything we're supposed to keep quiet on?" Raleigh clarifies, and Herc is never sure if Raleigh actually knows what he's talking about when he finishes for Mako, but the slight nod tells him he got it right this time.

"Just answer some of their questions. Use your head. I'd suggest getting inside fast as you can. They'll give you free booze in there—makes it easier. Just be careful," he cautions, and his smile's a little sad. He's not sure they notice the ache at its edges, though. He's never known young people to actually listen to that particular piece of advice.

Mako lowers her gaze and glances back and forth, filing away.

"Yes, sir," she says, dropping down a fraction of a degree of formality as she looks back up at him. Her tone is only just loud enough for him to hear over the din, and mostly because he's ignoring it. "I just thought something had changed." And she nods to him, indicating his general presence he realizes.

He lifts a hand and shakes his head just a little.

"Oh, no. I just came down here to make sure they didn't harass you two much. And to see that the pair of you remembered your manners."

"Sir?" Raleigh challenges a little.

Herc wishes and wishes against the weary weight at the edges of the smile that dismisses any accusation.

"Just go ahead. Don't mind I'm here. You two know what you're doin'," he assures them of his faith—as near absolute as he can get anymore.

**oOoOo**

Hermann Gottlieb isn't cut out for parties. He is utterly convinced once more about the fifth time in twice as many minutes he finds himself clearing his throat noisily. He gets a sidelong glance from someone, a lift of the eyebrows, to which he simply lifts his chin and tries to regain some dignity. As if they could take his dignity from him.

Reluctantly, he approaches Newton. The creases in his pants seem a bit on the floppy side as he slides along as gracefully as he can, finding that no one is being particularly rude or careless about the space he requires. Small wonders.

"Haven't you imposed enough on these poor people?" he tries. It's a different tactic from his usual approach to various standersby, but this is an unusual case. In this case, they are not standing in the way of progress. In this case, they are actually gawking at Newton's fantastic retelling of their accomplishments. As flattering as it is in some respects, he can tell that the happier Newton becomes, the more pleased with himself, the more he is going to accept every offered shiny thing in his way. Most of those shiny things come in glasses filled with familiar toxin—at least, he thinks, the term 'intoxicated' certainly lives up to itself when it comes to Newton.

"Oh, there you are!" Newton exclaims, and Hermann's completely sure he hasn't been heard. He sighs, but the breath catches in a little cough as he's roughly caught around the shoulders. Initially, the contact seems like an assault, but then he realizes the way he's being shaken, actually swayed from side to side, is friendly. Unaccustomed to being so abruptly and publicly lauded—at least in this way—Hermann can't really help it when his lips start to turn upwards. He feels the tug near his ears and immediately he tries to get a grip, control himself.

"Newton," he snaps, plaintive and with a bit of a grit of his back teeth. He scans his gaze over their small audience, matches a bit of a stare from the brunette lady he'd noticed watching Newton so intently before. He smiles apologetically, first at her and then at the rest of them. "I don't think _we're_ what they came here to see."

"You make 'em sound like animals, man," Newton replies, hand brushing roughly at the back of Hermann's shoulder pad.

"Whom, might I ask?"

"Mako, Raleigh... our _friends_ here," Newton says with a surprisingly graceful sweep of his hand. Surprising given the short glass of amber liquid he holds. Hermann is of half a mind to reach out and simply snatch it away, but he doesn't risk it.

"I think anyone might tire of the grizzly details of our discovery at a party, Newton. I greatly appreciate your striving toward the cultural relevance of our profession, but I have no doubt of our success in that regard. That is, given our role in the closing of the Breach," Hermann recites, straightening his posture a little mostly for their onlookers. He thinks that might be ceremony, spectacle enough from them—him in particular. It's not entirely dismissive of their apparent admiration. He doesn't quite know how to settle with it. It isn't anything he'd ever anticipated.

"No, no, Mr. Gottlieb—isn't it?" the brunette woman asks, surprising Hermann a bit. He lifts his eyebrows and his chin slightly, adjusting his view of her so it's a bit more cleanly focused.

"Yes—" he chimes in, but he's quickly cut off by the sudden firework flare of her expression. He's never actually met a _fan_ before. He feels his hand being clasped and he obliges with a traditional sort of shake. At least she understands them in a way Newton doesn't seem to.

"I'm so pleased you joined us! I've been talking to Newt about how I think you guys are... there's never been anything like you. Not since the advent of paleontology."

Hermann's gaze is captured away for a moment. With his free hand—the one that isn't still draped against his shoulder pad—Newton is happily gesturing with a little rhythmic, repeated, only half-rude sort of pointing to her. Absolute affirmation of what she's saying. He's eating this up, not even questioning the comparison.

"Only what you guys study—you've seen them! Even the specimens Newt's studied. They're fresh!"

"Yes," Hermann says once more with a slight crinkle of his nose. Kaiju entrails are still one of his least favorite things, and he's stood in half a sea of them now. If he were going to get used to it, he would have. He still wakes up in a cold sweat some nights, dreaming of some horrible side effect from coming into any direct contact with fresh blue blood. Perhaps it's a side effect of the Drift with the infant Kaiju, but he's honestly tried not to give it too much thought, tried not to give it too much of a_ bridge—_just in case. There are, after all, those stories about the ghost Drifting.

Hermann wheels his focus around from the young woman when he feels that something is amiss. Noticing that Newton is staring at him, he gives a soft and expectant huff. He knows that Newton is fully aware of his rudeness this time. There's a moment when he expects Newton to explain himself but then he gives up on it when he realizes he is about to be at the butt of another snide little comment by his fellow scientist. He can read it in the way Newton shakes his head and turns his attention back to the party guests.

"Excuse my friend, here," Newton bargains, and Hermann looks toward the ceiling and then away. The bar across the room and bloody _dance floor_ is beginning to look slightly more interesting. He feels the weight of Newton's arm lift off and instinctively he adjusts his weight against his cane. He actually feels more at ease in his balance without the touch—good riddance. "He's a little short on the words with _other people_, but I gotta tell you. This guy here? He's pretty cool."

That's new. Different. Alarming, really. Hermann pays attention once more, looking back to the small party gathered within the larger one. Again his lips are tugging a bit without his permission, but this time he's more suspicious. It's a learned behavior, and yet he half-remembers a sense of no-ill-will from Newton—amid all the Kaiju intelligence and gnashing of teeth.

"Guy saved my life. I mean, we shared it really—this guy would_ totally_ be dead if he'd tried it without me, but—What we did, it was pretty cool. And a Kaiju is _definitely_ not a co-pilot, if you know what I'm saying. Not even a little-bitty one," Newton carries on, holding hands a bread loaf's width apart to indicate the infant.

"I've heard about that," a young man among Newton's—their?—fan club chimes in. "A baby one? How big was it?"

Newton opens his mouth to reply but then closes it again. He holds up a finger to ask for one moment and turns his attention toward Hermann, body making a quarter turn, too.

"What can I tell you?" he asks, rhetorical. Hermann knows not to try and respond. He just waits in the unnecessarily long pause. "People _like_ the grizzly. The details."

"You know, it is considered exceptionally rude for you to speak of others who are right in front of you as if they are not here."

"You're lecturing me on rude with other people?" Newton challenges, but then he holds his hand up in surrender when he realizes he's struck a bit of a nerve. "But listen. I'm just_ saying, _man. Say they're—" And Newton gestures back toward the main entrance where Mako and Raleigh should be arriving momentarily. "—the gladiators? _We're_ the field doctors."

"I believe you might be mistaken as to the utility of _gladiators_. There were no _field doctors_ for those intended to die," Hermann retorts, irritated. He doesn't understand the relevance and once again he finds himself waiting to suffer more at the end of this silly diatribe.

"Oh, contraire. They _did_ have doctors. Not everyone who ever fought in the games died. There wasn't just _one winner_ always. That's a myth."

Hermann narrows his eyes—first at Newton, but then he shifts his squinted gaze at their _friends_. He's decided that perhaps two can play at this game.

"Oh, he's read up on something I haven't," he says, and it's mocking but it's mostly without bite. Again there's a little tug of a smile that he chooses to give into this time. It's not cruel but just a little satisfied.

Newton's shoulders drop down by a shade of overconfidence, and for a flash of an instant Hermann feels the immediate sense that he ought to apologize. But one glance at Newton tells him that the wound isn't too deep.

If he had been going to say anything else, Hermann realizes he's lost his chance at this particular match, round, game, because there's a sudden increase in the party's murmur and a commotion at the entrance of the ballroom. He straightens his posture once more and turns, ready to concede. And sure enough, their small fan club disperses in response to Mako and Raleigh's arrival, side by side, striding confidently but with a little occasional inward tilt of their elbows. The slight cringe from the amount of attention they're receiving makes him feel very nearly sorry for them. But it's to be expected.

"It was a documentary, actually," Newton corrects him as he falls in shoulder to shoulder with him, watching from a little ways off, the way Raleigh and Mako fight through some adoration and talk to a few particularly privileged journalists. Hermann thinks he might have sounded almost wistful, but then he decides that it was likely deadpan. "The gladiator thing," Newton clarifies, when he doesn't respond right away.

"Of course it was," Hermann replies, drolly. He looks at Newton who just appears increasingly forlorn, forehead creasing behind his glasses.

"Dude, you can't buy loyalty these days," he complains mildly.

Hermann regards him, shaking his head a little.

"Well what do you expect? Even in my _underprivileged_," Hermann mocks a little, but it's Newton who is constantly mocking _his_ social skills, "experience, I think it is quite common for the general public to be more interested in the _what_ than the _how_. And to be honest, deserved or not, us being recognized by _them_ is a bit of a coup, even if it is overshadowed."

He honestly doesn't know why he's expending so much effort trying to console such childishness.

"Yeah, I got that. But, like, what we did—" Newton tries to justify, but then he abruptly abandons that root. He just gestures toward Mako and Raleigh with a little wave of his hand, not entirely dismissive and not entirely excited. It doesn't seem particularly negative, either. Hermann is sometimes not even sure how to read the only human being he's ever Drifted with. "I just don't get why we don't also get... y'know... _stylists_ and shit."

It's a petulant, small concern. And yet, Hermann is quite nearly sympathetic with the fact that Newton doesn't seem to see it that way. In spite of this sympathy, the only immediate response he can manage is to look down. Specifically, he looks down and over a bit toward Newton's permanently decked out arms. It takes a moment for his companion to notice. When he does, the arms fold. Then he's being pointed at—mildly, but pointed at just the same.

"Hey, don't knock it. Them. Don't knock them," Newton demands. Then there's a small smirk gone wicked smile on Newton's face that Hermann can read quite plainly and doesn't like at all. "You know, I know just the place we should go. After this."

Hermann doesn't need to have Drifted with the raving madman before him to know what the suggestion is—directed particularly at the flesh of his wrist which Newton is eying altogether too much like a vulture.

"I would _not_ count on it," Hermann scolds, indignant. His cane makes a soft sound against the floor as he adjusts it a bit more violently than usual.

"Oh come on, just a _little one_. With me. Come on, buddy," Newton is pleading as Hermann turns to find another place to be, simply on principle. He doesn't protest being followed. He doesn't bother protesting the _'little one'_ idea either. If Newton is deluded enough to presume that his lack of argument is any change in his mind, then he will allow him the delusion for now. And he might well take him up on the sharing of a drink he knows will be offered when they take a seat.

One can only argue with so much.

**oOoOo**

"Okay, one more question and then I think I'm gonna go help myself to something to drink," Raleigh says, and he touches his throat just long enough to insight a little bit of professional, courteous pity.

Mako marvels at the way he knows with _them_ almost exactly how to get what he wants. He seems so unsure with other kinds of people. Quiet, sometimes, even. Mako doesn't talk as much as he does, most of the time. And certainly, there are times when he's assertive, defiant even. That's what she'd known about him at the beginning. And yet there is a certain kind of restraint he has that isn't one of hers. She can tell sometimes, when he's thinking, that there is something making a sound inside his head that never quite reaches his mouth. Her words come flying out when they matter the most, and yet she has a sense, she _knows_ that sometimes the things that are loudest in his head—he doesn't say them.

Even with the mild-mannered press, she can tell there's some concealment. It's a little rude, actually. She knows he's running a critical commentary in his mind, a little dismissive and perhaps condescending, right as he lifts as his chin and prepares to nod for the journalist to go ahead, to level his question. It's rude and yet Mako is utterly guilty of exactly the same. It puts a little bow smile on her face and she ducks around behind Raleigh to meet him at his side—the journalist had gotten a bit in the way for her liking.

She watches Raleigh. The way he gets away with it. Glancing between his eyes and noting the difference in his and the journalist's green ones, she sees the way there is absolutely no hint that he's anything but engaged. And maybe it's not a lack of engagement, really. It's something else. Because while she's fairly certain what Raleigh is thinking about the questions they've both answered, about the fact that they're still being asked them, about this whole party when she knows he sometimes thinks twenty-seven is old, she doesn't think it's actually quite a lie that he's paying attention and willing to offer an answer.

"You two are very good at the coy game," the journalist commends—genuinely commends. Mako imagines that her dress is itching up her spine even though it's perfectly comfortable. She can recognize rudeness in herself, in Raleigh, but nothing holds a candle to those who seek to document nearly every breath they take since the Breach. "But I'm just gonna come right out and ask you: what's next for you two?"

The suggestion is clear. The assumption is clear. Mako blinks at it as if she might clear dust from her eyes. She glances at Raleigh, supportive because she doesn't have to check to know that he is still looking at the journalist—not her.

"I think—" Raleigh begins, delicately. He looks down—again, not at her, but at his shoes. Then his gaze does lift up and she finds that he's smiling, slightly and just a little sheepish. And that smile is honest, not hiding much. She studies his gaze, smiling in turn and giving a polite, tiny little nod. It's not exactly permission, but mostly because that isn't what's needed here, what's necessary.

She could shift under the weight of the way he's looking at her. It's his honesty that burns. In spite of the occasional lie, the half-genuine smirk, the private life that she has privileged perspective upon, he always has the most honest eyes she's ever seen. All her life there have been omissions, evasions, and yet when she looks at him she doesn't see any of that. Even if she thinks she does she can see through it. Fully aware that her perspective might be skewed, biased, she's not sure she ever had an opinion that was any different—Drift connection or not. Not since the first time she laid eyes on him. On his.

Even when he doesn't tell the truth—omission or evasion or even lie—there's a kindness in his deception. It's never once been malicious or anything but throwing himself in front of something larger than himself. And she knows that—she's seen it, felt it in his head. She knows him. She trusts him.

And he's looking at her and she doesn't question how she knows what she's going to say. She thinks he thinks he's still trying to look for the rest of that sentence, but she knows better because it's on her tongue.

"I think Mr. Becket and I have yet to decide our plans for the future," Mako says cleanly, clearly, leaning in slightly so the journalist is forced to take her eyes. He does but seems a bit alarmed by the intrusion. There's a small part of her that almost has a desire to smirk, scoff, laugh—but now isn't the time or the place. Instead, she lets the moment's irritation pass away as she looks up at Raleigh to watch his eyes as she says the rest because it's for him as much as anything else. Everything around her eyes softens without her trying and the smile that comes is gentle, genuine, a little big but not quite enough to show her teeth.

_'Future.'_ It seems like Raleigh's word. And between them, it is. As far as she can see, the only certain thing ahead of her is him.

He'd used that word—moments before Pitfall, before she'd felt herself falling down and into the inescapable again. She had been so nearly finished, and she'd known it. The one thing she had always known she was going to do from the moment the dust had settled and she'd _survived_ once. And then came Raleigh Becket with his smile and talk of time. The future.

Looking at him now, smiling and opening her mouth to speak, nothing comes out for a second. She just breathes and she feels young the way he feels old sometimes, when it's not quite true. Pressing her lips together and becoming slightly more solemn, she speaks.

"I think it's... open," she says, not bothering to elaborate. She gets a hybrid of a nod and a head tilt from Raleigh, agreement and she's filled up with a grasping little urge to speak, to almost bite for it. But not in front of the journalist.

She almost doesn't notice when he's laughing—they all do—but then he does. For a moment more, she breaks her gaze down to him and waits.

"Oh, I think we both know better than that," he says. They all think it's a joke. They all assume they know. He thinks the suggestion is that they're open to anything—with or without one another. It couldn't be further from the truth, and it's so simply wrong that they don't address it.

Open. Open for discussion. Open—free. Open.

Other people back at the Shatterdome understand. They don't so misunderstand what Drifting with someone means, what it is. But Mako doesn't have any desire to explain.

"Are there any _big hints_ about what you're planning?" the journalist tries again.

Mako feels another itch up her spine when Raleigh speaks, but it's not irritation. It's pride and connected to her smile by an invisible muscle.

"I think you got your question. Excuse us."

They don't run. There's no need, no call for it. When they simply step away to leave and make their way over to one of the refreshment tables at last, they are given plenty of room to move around. They stick close together, but there is breathing space even between the two of them. It's new again suddenly, abrupt. Mako feels greedy for it, like maybe they ought to run away.

At the refreshment table, the urge seems just a little less urgent. Mako finds the heel of her hand pressing down against the edge of a tablecloth, feeling the soft fabric scarred and rough with shiny veins that sparkle and glint in the cycling, slowly shifting light. She looks down and grips a little, feeling the length of the fabric lift and bunch a little before she lets it fall neatly back into place.

Raleigh negotiates with two short cups made of hard plastic and Mako focuses on the bend of his knuckles. The moment he's drained the ladle into the second cup, she reaches out to take it from him. She takes a sip of it, her gaze briefly drifting down into the reddish liquid, into the scarlet reflections it casts forward against Raleigh's white shirt. She catches the heavy, spicy tingle just behind her nose as she swallows and draws it back away from her mouth neatly, a little surprised as she pushes a breath out.

"Not smooth as it could be," Raleigh observes at the end of his own sip. He doesn't seem at all alarmed by it and she smiles, waiting to be embarrassed but he nearly never embarrasses her. "But hey, least they warn us, right?"

He tips the rest of the small cup back and swallows with his neck elongated, Adam's apple bobbing. She watches before she takes a few smaller sips of hers to finish it in turn.

"You don't like the taste?" she teases.

"Hey, I'm not the one who sneezed," he says, but she doesn't back away. His response is weak, quiet, accommodating even. "You want something else?"

"No," she says, holding up her cup right before the bowl for him to refill.

"You got it," Raleigh obliges, pouring another ladleful into the cup and doing the same for himself without much of a pause. He lifts his gaze to hers and his smile goes a little more teeth-glinting and bright. "So you meant that over there?" he asks, nodding back toward where they'd stood with the last journalist. There isn't really a question there. He doesn't think of a second that she didn't, but there's a certain giddiness in the way he asks. The light in his eyes—he's excited, itching to lunge forward into this topic of conversation she swears he sometimes actively avoids.

She's never tried to insist that he make sense.

"Of course I did," Mako replies, and then she's smiling with a few more teeth, too, "... Mr. Becket."

Raleigh lifts his chin back in a bit of a nod with a lift of his eyebrows. He looks challenged, maybe a bit taken aback, but she knows by his smile that it's for show. He takes a particularly delicate sip of his own spiked punch as he works on an answer, flimsy caricature of consternation.

"And here I thought we were past all of that," he says eventually, still deliberating.

She doesn't give an answer, just a mild hum and little cock of her head. Her cheeks are hurting a little from the urge and action of smiling. She waits, in no hurry to say anything, but then she takes a step toward him and looks up. She hears her own breath as she takes it and lets it go, something much lighter than a sigh.

"We wouldn't want them," she says, not emphasizing the _them_ too much even though he should know she probably means to. It's discretion, secrecy, conspiracy. She doesn't let his eyes go for a second. "... to get the wrong idea," she finishes. Her painted lips feel smooth, slippery even against her teeth as she grins. And the way he's looking at her makes her want to never stop.

"Okay." He nods, a little more enthusiastically. "Then what's the right idea?" His free hand fidgets down, fingertips just touching in his trouser pocket.

"Aren't you going to wait for that?" Mako asks, and maybe she is playing coy just a little bit, but her eyes are brazen, peeling at his gaze to try and find a way deeper inside it.

"Should I?" Raleigh negotiates, matching her tone for tone, look for look.

"That's a private conversation, Raleigh," Mako says, and she knows exactly when to use his name. She saves it sometimes, holding it in her chest and against the back of her tongue. The way he seems to become a little lighter each time she says it makes her think that holding it back is a little bit miserly, that she should do it more often. But watching him go a little weightless—she can't imagine how that could last even until now, and she doesn't know how to let go of it yet. It's new and something she had never thought to experience for herself. In fact, she'd rarely thought about is existence—feeling like this.

She doesn't have a word for it when she takes another short step forward. Beneath the loud music she can hear the slight clicking of her heels. She's nearly stood toe to toe with him and looks up, waiting. There are things she won't talk about here, not now, not in public. But there's no discretion about the fact that she only really has eyes for him in the midst of all of this—whatever that means, whatever it's called. All the words that have been suggested to her in the space of the last hour, in all the questions and insinuations, fall miserably short.

Aiming for simplicity, Mako reaches up with her half-full cup, holding it even and steady as she hooks her forearm gently around, against his. She feels him go tense for a second, but then he's moving to accommodate her and he doesn't question what he's to do next. He brings his own drink to his mouth and presses the rim just against his lower lip and draws it back, a fraction of an inch.

She has seen it on television, in a film somewhere. A long time ago. She knows she's seen it—what they're doing.

Do their linked arms make an "X" form or do they make a "V"? She isn't sure but she feels the tug, the knot and loop of their elbows meeting and she feels anchored and steady even as she trusts her heels what feels like a little too much. The bubble of laughter between them shakes both the tiny vessels of liquid, but then there's a breath—drawn in by two mouths, shallow and precise—and there's no fear of them spilling. The sweetness and the earthy sting of the liquor rush over her tongue and she knows he's tasting it, too. One swallow down and in the pleasant tension in her throat she needs another. Her eyes still don't leave his.

She's a little startled when Raleigh's eyes cut across to the dance floor. She looks with him. They've waited long enough—no one's waiting on them to be first. She's not sure they would have anyway, but it's a relief. But of course, there's the fact that they've never—

"Do you want to?" Raleigh asks, meeting her right in the middle of her thoughts. He lowers his gaze to hers only as she turns back to meet his. She already feels lost in the sway, still tethered to him by their arms. She must have waited too long to answer because she thinks she's made him anxious. He ducks his head down a little lower, forehead inching toward the top of her head. "Dance, I mean. First time for everything?"

Mako fishes the cup from her hand with the one that's free and sets it aside in the appropriate place, guiding Raleigh as she moved backward. She moved to take Raleigh's cup too and when she was finished freeing their hands, she immediately sought his. Reaching up to clasp his hand, she feels the little jar of tension as she effectively tugs at his arm—right hand in right hand.

"You wanna arm wrestle?" Raleigh teases, grinning. Her cheeks ache but she just tilts her head at him, narrowing her gaze just slightly through her laughter. "Okay. Well, then..." he says, lifting her hand up and turning her around. For a moment she regrets the decision. She's learned all about a certain kind of elegance—fighting in the Kwoon, swordplay from the time she was a child, martial arts of one kind and then another. But she's never been a dancer.

And yet she knows how to move with him.

Before, it's been mostly side by side. Even after the obvious, they've been walking shoulder to shoulder, leaning half-crunched together across a bed, against the floor flat against their stomachs as he shows her pictures. The closest thing she has to compare this to is their match in the Kwoon that day, before she'd ever known it'd really _happen_. But his right hand catches her left and they adjust to the space between them as the floor beneath them changes and she hears another soft click from his dress shoes and then from her heels.

His hand curls around hers, fingertips catching it and palm brushing around the back of it. She knows that isn't the formal way of doing this, so she matches the lead and lets her head incline forward. Her temple meets his shoulder and she closes her eyes. Breathing in deep, she feels some flicker of memory of when it'd been so hard to breathe. She'd trusted him then, too. Trusted him to just let her... float.

That's what it feels like. Floating. And they're not even particularly elaborate with the movement of their feet. She's not sure if the careful little shuffle is anything but a shame to actual dancers, but she thinks it's enough to keep up with the other people on the floor. She anticipates Raleigh wanting her to look at him, but she keeps her eyes closed just a little longer. She's breathing and hearing it in. The lazy but steady heartbeat of the music makes her aware to really listen for his while she can, feeling some secret joy in the fact that she's allowed to seek it out. His pulse, his breathing.

Fingers play with her hand as they circle around and she feels them interlace. She's not sure, but she thinks that feels more ordinary to the way she's seen others dance before. It's strange now, thinking about this being the first time she's really done such a thing. There were other kinds of celebrations, other kinds of choreography, and Raleigh isn't the first _male peer_ she's ever touched in any respect but it's never been anything so very close to intimate.

But even that's something that warms her throat into wanting to laugh.

The idea that they're anything but intimate now is a joke or even a lie.

They don't need to have touched.

At first, his touch to her waist is cursory—tentative and ghosting. The surprisingly heavy, smooth fabric of her dress feels cold against her skin at the faint friction, but she feels a heat that follows when he presses in against the narrowest part of her frame. She feels his hand as a steady, even force at first, but then his fingertips move. Her eyes come back open in blinking stages as if she's waking up, pleasantly tingling pinpricks lighting up along her skin. He's adjusting, kneading, but then he notices that he's roused her attention and he softly brushes his fingers along with even greater care.

"Mako?" he asks, and she's got no question as to whether or not she'll look up and meet his eyes. She knows that's what he's asking for. When their gazes meet, the shifting lighting on the dance floor seems a little too dark but then it swells back up so she sees him clearly in a wash of sunny yellow that gives way to red.

"I'm right here, Raleigh."

"This is—I wanted to say that—"

And however good he is with the press sometimes, however often he knows exactly what to say to get the truth out of her, she knows he's at a loss for words. He's run across that same, big thing she frequently cannot find a world sufficient to say. She won't even dare try to speak it in her first tongue, even though she knows he'd understand if she tried.

She doesn't think there's a word for it in any language. Before people like them—connected in a way no one had ever dreamed about—there had never been the need.

"I know," she promises. It holds the same weight as when she'd promised him that she knew the weight of his brother in her soul. She still did. She knew a man she'd never met. And yet this was lighter—_alive_.

He leans down and in and—while there's certainly a glance at his lips, a certain greediness when it comes to the nearness of his breath that she's altogether too grown up to misunderstand—she knows what he wants. It's nothing so simple as a kiss, and when she tilts her head forward a little too to let their foreheads meet as they gently sway and move in a lazy rotation among the rest of the crowd, she knows the rest of the world can wait on this.

"You ever think we should get out of here?" Raleigh proposes. It takes her just a little off guard because it sounds so sweeping and so deeply felt. She doesn't think he's just talking about leaving the party, which might have been a little more expected when she can feel something charged in the air.

"Where would we go?" she asks, not changing their simple contact. For a moment it bothers her that everyone can see, that they all likely understand what it means, but then it doesn't anymore. She is perfectly willing to give him what he needs.

"I don't know. Outside," Raleigh jokes, but she can tell that this is the same as her prior request for privacy. He'll tell her. Later.

They have such different ways of speaking, but she can tell when they mean something that's so perfectly the same.

Straightening up just a little, Mako gets another look at Raleigh's eyes from a bit closer.

"I don't think we'd get very far without a better plan than that."

"Really," Raleigh replies flatly, but then he smirks. "Just how far do you wanna go with me?"

She feels a flush in her cheeks, but she utterly refuses to be embarrassed. She leans her head back toward his with a little more momentum, lightly bumping. And yet, in the middle of it she feels his hand move against the small of her back and then she cares so much less about dancing. So much of her just wants to go somewhere and be still with him. To listen and try to reach out across the divide, to find the bridge between them that they'd been connected through for too short a time even though there's a part of it that remains.

"Private," she retorts.

"Oh, really?" Raleigh asks, earning another backward nudge that bumps the tip of her nose to his. And she stays that close, quite deliberately. Then he clears his throat and starts laughing, softly and mostly only breath. She feels the heat radiating from his skin and she can tell he's actually blushing hot enough that he's actually a little ashamed. "Sorry. I... I didn't—" And in a way he's telling the truth with his denial, but he trails off because he won't get too close to a lie. Not with her.

She hears it and she respects it and stops pressing—with her forehead and the issue. The tip of her nose is still brushed against, just to the side of his. A few more breaths and she thinks she might have felt more than just the shared warmth that makes the rest of her shiver.

But the song ends.

And that wouldn't have mattered were it not for the movement of an elderly couple to their right whose remembered steps give way to a little bit of adjustment as they go to sit down. Raleigh all but arches his back at the idea that he might have been in their way, and his hand finds Mako's shoulder rather than its previous hold as they also move away from the floor.

Looking around to get her bearings, Mako realizes they've moved halfway across and they're as far from the punchbowl as they are from the bar.

"You, uh—" Raleigh starts, and for an instant he seems bested of his breath. He takes one and clears his throat softly. "You want to find something to eat?" he asks, addled.

When he asks, she still feels lightheaded and starts to nod with a tenderly obliging smile. She's never been doted upon quite like this before—and yet Raleigh always finds a way.

But then she turns around and clears her focus and she find's she's facing a wall that's much more normally lit than all the rest. There's some greenery there, but she's suddenly struck with just how much of it is fake. The first thing to catch her eye was a familiar face—and then a second—altogether much too big and clearly focused for life. There's a delicateness to the finish of the photographs that makes them look like paintings, and they're blown up into portraits that are about half her height. Leaned up on easels, they're garlanded with plants that make her painted nails grind into her palm, resisting the urge to go and carefully, thoroughly take them down.

"Whoa, I'm... sorry," Raleigh says, and she can tell from the bouncing lilt in his voice that he hasn't noticed yet when he touches her bare arm, just above her elbow. She still feels his skin's heat, but the shiver she responds with isn't quite so pleasant as she looks at him with all the weight she feels. She nods slightly, not wanting to look back again at the opposing or side by side—it's difficult to tell in the garish,_ honorary _display. Rather than looking again, she watches as Raleigh looks and his face changes just a little more hard-lined from the corners of his eyes down to his mouth.

Beneath either portrait, the names read:

**MARSHALL STACKER PENTECOST** and **RANGER CHARLES "CHUCK" HANSEN**

"... Some funeral parlor," Raleigh comments thickly as he takes it in, turning his gaze back over his shoulder and turning around to match it. Mako's looking out over the sea of people in front of them, too. She's relieved that he sees it too—the flagrant disrespect.

She understands their need for celebration. She even understands why she and Raleigh in particular are being lauded and pampered while the rest of the world grasps for the next thing to _do. _But she cannot simply ignore the way the mingling of this simple memorial with this rampant party—tasteful or otherwise—turns them into what she should have seen them to be all along, more than she already has: toys.

"I'd like to go home," she announces suddenly.

It takes Raleigh a moment to pry his scrutiny away from the masses of people who have forgotten about watching them for now, but when he does he offers his hand. She takes it.

Moving through to the hotel lobby, Mako moves her feet just a little faster and Raleigh keeps on matching her pace. She's surprised they haven't been interrupted in their not very well-concealed flight away from the ballroom, but she'd prefer not to try their luck.

She almost wishes that the coat check hadn't caught her eye again on their way out the door. She tugs Raleigh's hand gently toward herself.

"I should get my bag."

Walking over, there's a murmur in hushed, stilted Cantonese, and while she understands it well enough, it's not her best language when she feels so unspeakably tired. She knows Raleigh speaks even less. She wonders if that's changed now that they've shared a mind. There are a lot of things that don't become apparent until they're tested, she's found.

She is about to explain who she is when a somewhat short man—and now she understands the accent because he looks like an expat from somewhere, too—turns to her and widens his eyes with recognition. She hears _'Mori,'_ first and then there's another accented babble that she thinks might be directed to her or simply himself. She isn't sure. She turns back toward Raleigh and shrugs a little, silently questioning whether or not he has any idea. It's not terribly important, though, and the coat check attendant hurries off into the area just behind his curtain.

"This is it, yes?" the attendant asks in English upon his return, and he holds up the red clutch. Mako nods and almost forgets to answer.

"Yes. Yes, that's mine," she confirms, the repetition making her keenly aware of how tired she is. The length of her day seems to have doubled in the last few minutes. "Do you need anything from me?" she asks when she reaches out and carefully takes the clutch from his hand. She was a little unsure if the offer was polite or if she'd been meant to simply take it.

"Oh, no. No, no," the attendant carries on as he makes a notation in a booklet. "Not for you."

"Alright," Mako agrees. "Thank you," she says, and then she turns to Raleigh with the useless and empty little bag and another small shrug. Raleigh extends a hand at her shoulder's height, and she isn't going to hesitate in stepping in, letting herself linger near his body at least until they reach the doors. She knows that there probably won't be as many as when they'd entered, but she is already thinking about the cameras and squinting at nothing for a moment because she doesn't have anything to glare at. She keeps her gaze on the pattern on the carpet as she's almost to Raleigh's side. She's of half a mind not to let him touch her in front of them—not anymore, not tonight. She doesn't want every second of her life photographed and examined by people who will one day frame it in fake flowers.

"Wait! Miss. Miss Mori. Mr. Becket!" the attendant calls. When she looks and feels Raleigh turn with her, the man is lifting his arm up straight and waving his hand back and forth, fingers enthusiastically engaged in an attention-gaining effort. "This way," he says when they're both looking at him.

"This way where?" Raleigh asks.

"You both look tired. The rooms are, of course, upstairs, but since you are leaving, wouldn't you like to slip out the service alley? No press. Not pretty enough," the attendant explains.

Mako still can't identify his accent, but she's not trying very hard.

"Uh... if you think they'll _let us_ out that way—" Raleigh considers. He's a fraction of an inch away from her and not holding her close, but Mako can still feel his body heat.

"Who would stop you? I work here," the man explained, friendly in a way that reminded Mako of Christmas. It wasn't _too_ sweet, though. She shrugged a little when she looked at Raleigh. He was waiting on permission and she didn't know whether or not to give in.

"Why not?" she answered.

And so she found herself taking Raleigh's hand again and coming through a door to the right of the coat check desk. The hallway is nothing like the rest of the ornate hotel. It's white and gray and long and lit with just a tinge of white-blue that flickers. It hurts a little to look at, but there is a dark gray door at the end with a sign posted for the way out up above. When the door closes behind Raleigh, it seems like a closed capsule that vibrates faintly. She imagines that closing her eyes for very long at a time would give her the illusion of sonar. She grips tightly to Raleigh's hand and pulls him along to her side. The hallway is wide enough and she wants out—it's unsettling. She feels trapped beneath an arena even though she's never actually been to a live sporting event.

"Kinda creepy when you haven't seen a place like this in a while," Raleigh comments.

Mako's thoughts exactly.

At the end, Mako is glad to be the first to push at the thin crashbar and open up the door. While it was likely technically cooler inside the empty, echoing corridor, Mako feels a chill work its way across her skin as her body temperature seems to even out in the fresh air. She doesn't show it too prominently but she takes deep breaths, trying to cleanse her lungs. There's something a little hazy about the air in Hong Kong, and she can never decide if it's worse or better in this little finished space. She gently wriggles her hand free of Raleigh's and reaches up to rub carefully beneath her eyes then aimlessly against her cheekbones, clutch held pressed beneath her elbow.

"You okay?" Raleigh asks, and then he takes his turn to touch her shoulder. She likes it—this new kind of ease that's slipping right into place where it belongs. It's nice, having it like an anchor when she still feels a certain anger, an indignation she knows she can't and won't voice. She'd never be loud enough for all of them to hear.

"They treat the Mar—" And she almost finishes it that way but then her eyes feel heavy beneath and a little wet and she uses Raleigh's looking at her as something to focus on, dropping her hands down to her side. "They treat _my father_ and... and they treat Chuck like he's—they're—" But there aren't words for it so she just shuts her eyes and shakes her head, making a soft _sound_ of frustration.

There is a nearby splash, a little bit louder than the occasional creeping, heavy hum of a slow-moving car, truck, or van.

She feels the impact of the surprisingly hard, thin sole of a dress shoe against her shin and then the damp underside beneath it, dragging. The angle doesn't make sense and there are the sudden sounds of any more feet—more familiar boots and sensible shoes—all around. Mako's eyes fly open just as the sounds begin to become comprehensible in her ears.

"Mako!" Raleigh's calling out, and it _hurts_ her because she can hear as much fear as there's anger. Her fingernails dig into a gripping arm but she finds mostly heavy cloth she can't hope to penetrate. She bites down—and it's against every way she's been taught to fight, but there's a drive in her she thinks is inside anyone, and after being in Raleigh's head there's even less aversion to fighting dirty. Then her weight curls and she tries to drag a larger assailant to the ground, and even in the midst of this violence she wishes she was touching Raleigh instead. She trusts him.

Images she sees, filing away in her mind—red and sparkle on the ground, and Raleigh lands a punch and then another but there are more sets of hands that they can fight back against on their own—and then her effort at moving forward comes to an abrupt halt. Her knees are giving because there's a sharp, tugging, pulling pain in her ankle that she knows isn't right. There's a tap against the ground and then a crack and she stumbles and her arm is wrested back and held very still.

There's shouting, and some of it might be her own but there's a prick, a sting in her arm just below her elbow and a little sickening jiggle. She looks and catches sight of a dulled refraction of light through a tube, through clear, sterile plastic. And then she breathes in and out, in and she's afraid and... she's out.


End file.
